Coronavirus: European Council bans non-essential travel to the EU for 30 days

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The European Council
has agreed to a temporary restriction of non-essential travel to the
EU for a period of 30 days, based on the approach proposed by the
European Commission, Council President Charles Michel said on the
evening of March 17.

“We endorsed the
guidelines proposed by the Commission on border management. We
need to ensure passage of medicines, food and goods and our citizens
must be able to travel to their home countries. Adequate solutions
for cross-border workers will be found,” he said after the
meeting of the European Council, which was held by teleconference.

Michel said that EU
leaders had committed to co-ordinate among their embassies and EU
delegations in non-EU countries regarding the repatriation of EU
citizens.

The EU foreign policy
chief and the European External action service will support in this
regard, the statement said.

“We will jointly
arrange repatriation of EU citizens, where necessary and possible,
and make use of the Union’s Civil protection mechanism. Additional
EU funding for such joint operations will be mobilised.”

The statement said that
the European Council meeting scheduled for March 26 and 27 was being
postponed.

Deutsche Welle reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that, in a teleconference with other EU leaders, it had been agreed that the bloc-wide ban should be enacted on travel from outside the EU. The chancellor said there would be relatively few exceptions but that European Free Trade Area countries, as well as the United Kingdom, would not be included.

The ban is due to
remain in place for a period of 30 days. European Commission
chief Ursula von der Leyen had proposed on Monday that the bloc’s
Schengen passport-free zone impose the drastic and unprecedented
measure, and that fellow EU states should follow suit.

It does not affect
Europeans returning home and cross-border professionals. Britain
is exempted from the travel ban because it is currently in a
transition period following its exit from the EU.

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